I want to dig into the science of how your patterns actually work today. This will help you take your new attitude and start building new habits or breaking bad habits with it.
The strength of habit.
There's an easy, 3-step cycle that follows every habit. Just about every behavioral psychologist out there has proved it time and time again. The loop is called the "3 R's of Habit Shift".
Reminder. The cause that initiates the actions.
Routine. The real actions that you undertake.
Reward. The profit from the action being performed.
Let's take a look at the 3 R's with a real-life example in action.
Reminder. They ring the doorbell. This is the reminder that initiates your actions. For you to get up and answer the door, the sound created by the doorbell acts as a trigger.
Routine. You see who's on the doorstep. This is the real conduct that is being carried out. Usually, you get up to answer it when the doorbell rings. This is a habit that you have developed over your life through repeated experiences.
Reward. Who's at the entrance, you find out. The benefit you have earned from acting is your reward. You satisfy your curiosity in this instance by wondering who's at the entrance.
With a good reinforcement (i.e. the mailman with a package for you and not anyone to abduct you) you do this enough times and you form a positive feedback loop in your brain. Basically, you're discovering that you can answer it the next time the doorbell rings.
This is how a single action over time is transformed into an autonomous habit.
It's time to learn how to apply them and start building new habits now that you understand the science of how habits work.
Stage 1. Uh, step 1. For your new habit, pick a trigger
If you want to develop a new pattern, the stimulus that the desired behavior would follow must first be established.
We will take a different approach instead of doing what most individuals do and rely on will power to start a behavior.
A fool's game for developing new habits is to focus on inspiration. Motivation comes and goes, which is why when it comes to success, top performers don't handle it. Instead, by including them in everyday tasks they already carry out, they find it super easy to start new habits.
This takes out of the equation the inconsistency of motivation and helps you to form stable behaviors.
Say, for instance, you want to start meditating for five minutes per day. You can try to incorporate it into your routine at random, or you can relate it to an activity that is already part of your daily activities (say, brushing your teeth). This causes the new behavior to be activated by something you are already doing without thinking about it.
Wake up, brush your teeth, then, for 5 minutes, start meditating. You don't have to collect the willpower to meditate every day at random, it's something that you only start doing right after you brush your teeth.
The 2nd stage. Make it extremely easy to start and impossible to fail with your habits
We all feel the desire to do too much, as we've mentioned before, too soon after getting psyched up about a new target. But actually achieving the goals, as we found, is less about the outcome and more about the day-to-day behaviors that make it a reality.
So then, the question becomes "how do we make sure that we consistently practice the required behaviors?"
Answer: make it extremely easy.
The worst thing about getting things done is beginning an operation. Once you get started, keep going and finishing is actually much easier. In action, this is Newton's First Law of Motion: An object in motion appears to stay in motion. To get going, you just need the impetus.
Let's assume, for instance, you want to start running regularly. You tell yourself that every day, you will run 2 miles. That probably seems like a daunting task for most. Tell yourself, instead, that you're just going to get out and run down the street. If you do, then it's a day of achievement. Chances are that you'll want to keep going once you get out and start running.
And even if you don't, you have at least achieved the objective of running down the lane.
In the beginning, success isn't something you need to think about. Only going out there and doing the new action is the main thing. Later on, you can scale up the level of success to your desire once it has become an automatic habit.
Stage Three. Rewarding yourself
Last but not least, without a reward at the end, the habit loop will not be complete. If your action does not have an immediate positive outcome, chances are you will probably not stick with it (no matter how high the pay off later). We want to carry on doing stuff that now makes us feel good.
That's why, after successfully practicing your habit, it's important to always rejoice and applaud yourself.
Strong self-talk provides one way to do this. A simple "Hell, Monskins, yeah!" "It can go a long way or a" good job. This may sound odd at first if you're not used to it, but believe me, it helps.
Another way is to recruit a partner and have them cheer you on (perhaps a boyfriend, girlfriend, spouse, acquaintance, whatever). People love to help others out and make them feel good, especially when their heart is close and dear to someone. Have fun in any way you can with this.
Now, if there was just one way to stick to your newly developed routines, even if life continues to get in the way.
Tip me in cointree :)
